Who (or What) is a Catholic (or a catholic)? - Part 4

In order to better understand the word Catholic (or catholic), it helps to understand the origin of the word (it's etymology).  It's a word that derives from the Latin, and earlier from the Greek, so be ready for some nitpicking language study in this post.

The English word (Catholic) eventually derives from the Latin word "catholicus," which means universal. That word derives from a Greek word, katholikos(καθολικός), which also means universal.  It's derived from two Greek phrases κατά meaning "about" and όλος meaning "whole."  When combined, these two phrases make up another phrase, καθόλου (katholou), meaning "on the whole", "according to the whole" or "in general."

The Greek word began to be used in the 2nd Century (100-199), by Christians to describe the universal scope of the Christian Church.  (It does not appear in the New Testament.)  The first time it appears is in a letter by St. Ignatius of Antioch in 107, by which he means the Church universal in contrast to the particular congregation in Smyrna.

By the latter part of the 2nd Century, the word (Catholic or catholic) took on the additional meaning of the Church grounded in orthodox beliefs in contrast to heretical beliefs.  So later St. Augustine (354-430) used the term Catholic to distinguish the true Church from heretical groups.

Thus many use the term Catholic (or catholic) to describe all the churches in Christianity (especially those that are orthodox in belief).  Other churches, like the Catholic Church (sometimes called the Roman Catholic Church), but others as well (as I mentioned in Part 2), tend to use it in a more exclusive sense to mean the churches in communion with them, in exclusion to other Christians and churches, which they tend to think of as "non-Catholic," or use other terms to describe them.  This is only a short introduction to a subject I will discuss this in more detail in my next post.

On to Part 5
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